Hey all! I’d like to take this opportunity to take a break from the entertainment industry and talk about something that has stayed with me since a discussion I had in class this past week. My professor brought up the word “senseless,” and mentioned its frequency as a headliner in modern news culture.

Too often do we hear phrases like “senseless acts” or “senseless violence.” In my personal opinion, the use of this word is a result of unabashed laziness. If you use the word “senseless” to describe something, what I hear is “I am too lazy to really look at this situation or subject and try to figure out any pattern that can be traced or any motive that could possibly be made apparent.” This is simply laziness in its purest form. If we continue to make excuses for those who are commiting these so called “senseless” offenses, we will NEVER be able to put a stop to them. This is most recently visible in cases of school shootings. I guarantee you that all of these perpetrators have things in common that could be used to create a profile that would be useful in helping us put a stop to future incidents. Just because we don’t understand someone’s reasoning for something does not mean that person did not have a reason driving his actions; to that person, his acts made perfect sense. That is the problem with labeling things as “senseless.” All actions spring from feelings and all feelings originate somewhere.

Thank you guys for allowing me this digression. I find it incredibly important that we discuss topics such as this one because it is so relevant. Think of the countless lives that could be saved if instead of just having a huge pity party and saying “Well that’s just so unfortunate” everytime a horrifying incident occurs, we actually took action and attempted to make sense of things that we might not understand in hopes of preventing future occurrences.

Moral of the story: Don’t use the word senseless. It is lazy and unimaginative. The fact that something doesn’t make sense to YOU does not mean that everyone is in your same boat, and vice versa. Have the drive to get to the bottom of things. Learn everything you can.